The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers is completing a proposed standard designated 802.11 for wireless LANs. The standard recommends a Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) protocol with Collision Avoidance (CSMANCA) as the LAN access protocol. The CSMA/CA protocol was developed primarily for data applications, and, therefore, is not well-suited for voice applications. The proposed 802.11 standard specifies that a so-called "point coordination function", i.e., a centralized protocol, may potentially support voice communications. We have recognized, however, that the point coordination function suffers from a number of problems, mainly from the fact that it is centralized. In particular, the centralized function (a) requires an access point to have good propagation conditions with all of the other stations and (b) cannot operate well in an environment with more than one cell.